Now even McDonald’s is more strict on deforestation than the British government

The British government has stated that they wish to end illegal deforestation. This this is a good aim, to be sure, however it obviously isn’t anywhere near enough.

The deforestation that has gone on in Indonesia over the last few decades has been totally legal, someone has said that land can be turned into palm plantations, even if someone else has said that land is supposed to be in a national park.

Sumatra has cut down more than half of their rain forests legally for palm oil plantation. Illegal deforestation is usually made legal after it s cleared

Frankly the government is on the wrong side of this argument. The people understand the deforestation must stop, indeed the majority of British people have understood this for years, and in most countries where deforestation is continuing there is more than enough deforested land to be used for the purposes they want it.

Other than McDonald’s these 21 signatories also include including Unilever, Tesco, Lidl, Nando’s, Nestle, the convenience food maker Greencore and the chicken producer Pilgrim’s Pride.

Now with some of these companies such as Unilever have been accuse of creating the need for deforestation.

Regardless of what the British government does they must be held to this signature demand. 

The government should be leading, though at the moment they seem to have given up their leadership role on the climate change fight and the fight to halt the loss of wild species and wild areas.

Furthermore the government’s plans on these rules, would only apply to big companies: medium and small companies would be allowed to carry on.

This simply isn’t good enough,quite apart from anything this would allow the big company is to simply employ locals to do the dirty work for them.

The government suggested that by dealing with illegal deforestation first they can reduce the rate of deforestation dramatically, and indeed by replanting forests that have been degraded forest cover can grow. While this is true it isn’t enough. Often legal deforestation does not follow a sensible pattern.

One example of this is Herakle farms, a British owned company that raised 100 square miles of rain-forest in the last intact area of the Congo. They had all the permits, but this area simply shouldn’t have been used.

A recent survey by WWF suggested that 67% or 2 in 3 people wanted the government to do more to combat deforestation, both so-called legal and illegal.

Some of this group though does not meet the the requirements of some of the others.for instance McDonald’s has said that they will eliminate deforestation from their food chain by 2030 however that is way too late.

I found it odd that the article ended buy palm all alliance saying that we needed to be careful and allow the small scale deforestation by people to grow foods- however it has been palm oil companies that have got locals to set up farms for that in many regions and this small-scale work has started the deforestation,the palm oil company has then moved in and deforested more.

A warning about the upcoming American election, denial of scientific fact can’t continue – we must get the word out

Introduction

Before I get into this article I want to make a few points clear. Firstly I recognise I’m not an American, that is why I’m writing an article about this rather than voting. Secondly the concept that non Americans don’t have a right to have a view is insane, not least because even if the UK will not be one of the hardest hit by climate change, I do not want the UK to become a chain of islands, something that is not inconceivable if run away climate change does occur (as this is likely to lead to significant sea level rises). Indeed, to the contrary a majority of Americans do believe in science and indeed in global warming – Trump is in the minority and Americans must recognise the severity of this issue and vote him out on the basis of his denial or scientific facts on this. Having said that, on with the article.

This article is not, I repeat not, about bashing Donald Trump. I do not think he should be president, but I do not live in America and if Americans want to choose someone who appears from the outside to be the most unsuitable man in history for the job so be it.

Note: this article is far longer than normal. I have worked through a number of issues facing the USA and world at the moment. I also wish to make clear, I am happy for this article to be reposted elsewhere or linked if people would like. I know this blog has a few American readers. If you repost, please repost in full, credit me and include a link back to this blog.

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A group of leading scientists well-known conservation figures and it’s government officials call for the government at halt is foolish roll out of the badger cull

The Badger cull expansion is a stupid move, and shows that the UK government doesnt use the best science and experts to decide its actions.

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An amazing photograph: leopard with a living shadow

For many people who go on safari to Africa the one animal that they wish to see is leopard. This is unfortunate, as out the big five it is the hardest to see. There are of course many parts of Africa where black rhino are very rare, and indeed white rhino are only founded significant numbers in South Africa.

However there are many days we went on a game drive in the Kruger national park, and saw lion rhino buffalo and elephant with ease. A day with a leopard sighting with something special. Nocturnal, solitary and highly secretive shepherds are not generally animals you see lazing about (unless driving along a river bank you find one stretched out along a branch above your heads).

To photograph a leopard with a black leopard is something few people get a chance to do

In India the leopard similarly difficult animal to spot.

A black leopard often tops the list of impossible animals to spot. Black leopards or as they are often called black panthers, are caused by a recessive gene in the parents. As such, in general people estimated that roughly 1-in 1000 leopards are born black.

Indeed when a black leopard was sighted last in Africa a photographer specifically flew out from the UK to photograph it.

As such the below photograph is something very special. Female leopard with its black partner, that have been paired for perhaps 7 years. What is fantastic about this picture though is that it shows then both look in the same way behind one another like the black leopard is a shadow of the common leopard. The photograph of spent 6 days waiting for the perfect picture (to look at the original article search mymodernmet website: picture by Mithun h)

Decline of the big cats since the start of the 20th century

Apex predators are extremely important for ecosystem survival, as they control the numbers of smaller species. Unfortunately these species are doing poorly as a whole. Below I have concentrated on on the biggest cats as they have a huge impact on the ecosystem that they live in. Unfortunately all are declining rapidly.

Lions: as the 20th century began it’s thought lion still numbered around 200,000 (numbers and now 20,000 if that, with that number having dropped by about 10,000 in the last 20-years), 

lion

Tigers: at the turn of the 20th century it was thought there were around 100000 tigers (current estimate is between 3200 and 3900 animals, a minimum of a 96% reduction in numbers, with three now extinct including the Caspian Balinese and Javan- while recent genetic analysis suggests the Caspian tiger was merely the Western portion of the Siberian tigers range, there is no habitat to put it back into) beyond these three extinct tiger subspecies, South China tiger has not been seen in the wild for several decades and is also thought extinct and a Sumatran tiger is also critically threatened by the loss of its habitat. 

tiger

Leopards: being secretive, leopards are one of the hardest animals to quantify accurately. The encyclopaedia Britannica what’s the population of leopards in Africa at 700000, however this is probably a vast overestimate did other conservation organisations consider this an absurd estimation. One thing that has been noted, is that the habitat for the leopard has fallen by 75% since 1900. Current estimates for leopards living wild in South Africa ranged from 5000 to 10000,which suggests that the continent population cannot be above 200,000,having looked at the populations of leopards in various countries in Africa it is unlikely that any more than this.

wild leopard

Jaguars: appear to have done the best the best, with their population of 60,000 animals thought to be around 2/3 of what it was in 1900. However is President jair bolsonaro of Brazil has his way this could change rapidly, as the Amazon rainforest is the refuge for the majority of this remaining population. Encouragingly in places where are conservation work is done the jaguar population is still capable of growing, not all hope is lost provided we stop destroying their habitats.

jaguar

Snow leopards: the fifth big cat, it is the undisputed king of the Himalayas. 2016 a thorough assessment suggested that there was between 4000 and 8000 snow leopards left in the world. WWF has a current estimate of around 4000-6500 worldwide. Being secretive it is very hard to get a precise figure.

snow leopard

Unfortunately this is an even bigger problem looking at historical populations. It’s unclear what the historical number of snow leopards were, however it seems reasonable to suppose that they’re largely unchanged. It is true that we have had all sorts of impact on the environment in these mountains, however given how little time we spend high in the Himalayas it is clear that at the very least the reclining snow leopard numbers is vastly smaller than that of the other big cats (though this is not because humans have behaved better, merely that it is too hard for us to get there regularly, and therefore we can’t pressurise their population the same way we have the other biggest cats.

Scientists have discovered that male elephants play a significant role in elephants society

Up till now the understood role of male elephants was to occasionally turn on and sire young. Apart from that they roamed alone and spent much of their time, roaming large areas and occasionally meeting up with other balls to form loose coalitions for time.

Bull elephants may be just as important to the survival of an elephant population as the matriarch who runs the herd
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A century after the last French Pyrenean ibex were killed, ibex introduced from Western Spain are thriving

Back in 1910 a hunter shot that lasts to French Pyrenean ibex. It survive for longer in Spain with the last one having been found dead in the year 2000. The new animals, the Spanish western ibex were started to be moved in the year 2014. There is now a population of around 400- a number boosted from last year’s total with 70 young counted this year.

The similar Spanish Ibex is being reintroduced into the former range of the French Ibex
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Couple who tried to buy a Savannah cat in France, instead were giving a Sumatran tiger cub

Savannah cats are a cross between a domestic cat and a serval. 

On the left is a savannah cat, on the right is a serval cat.

A serval cat is a cat species, that stands a bit taller than a normal domestic cat. They live in the savannas of the world and hunt mostly by leaping high in the air and coming down on the back of the animal they are trying to catch. There are also relatively efficient at catching birds that fly over them,and indeed if you see a serval in a zoo it is not unusual the same pile of feathers somewhere in their enclosure,

Savannah cats are a relatively recent cross-breed. They are given a code depending on how much of their genes are serval. While several cats are not actually endangered in the wild, if Savannah cats became too popular this might change quite quickly.

They exhibit some more dog like behaviors, many can be put on a lead and taken for a walk.

A Sumatran Tiger cub however is quite different. Apart from anything Sumatran tigers are critically endangered with less than 400 roaming the remaining forests of their home. Apart from poaching, and attempts to catch young for the pet trade (it will often lead to the death of the mother), they are also heavily threatened by the fact that their rain forest home is being cut down.

Stupidly much of their home is being cut down for palm oil growth, and while some of this is used in food products,it has been sold as a way to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. The problem being, that in order to undo the carbon emissions from cutting down the forest in the first place, in areas are likely to take more than a century of use for palm oil.

Given the urgency of cutting are carbon emissions now,far from helping in the fight to halt climate change this behaviour will make it worse.

Quite rightly keeping Sumatran tigers as a pet is illegal in most countries. It is also highly unwise, unfortunately as it is also highly popular in certain places, partly given the size the Sumatran tiger is the least unwise tiger to try to keep in captivity. However if this trend of keeping tigers in captivity-most captive tigers are held in the USA, they could be pushed to extinction within the next short few decades.

The trend for Savannah cats is not much better. While Serval cats are not under great pressure in the wild, this could change fast, and while a cross between a serval and domestic cat will lead to a more placid animal, it is still likely to behave in a far wilder way than a domestic cat. Furthermore, if Savannah cats became popular we could see heavy pressure put on the wild Serval across its range.

Despite only relatively recently being defined as a separate species forest elephants are rapidly disappearing and this could have incredible impacts on the rain forest where they live

It was only in 2010 the forest elephants were conclusively shown to be a separate species. Indeed up until this point it had been assumed that they were just different because they lived in different places but we’re essentially the same species. Turns out the genomes diverged between 2 and 3 million years ago,an African forest elephants and more closely related to the mammoth than their Savannah cousins.

Unfortunately due to the asymmetric deforestation within Africa, at the point of this discovery a small number of countries had the majority of the responsibility for conserving them into the future. One of these countries was Gabon, west African country that still has much of its rain forest intact.

Specializing in low number high cost tourism there was a hope that Gabon could succeed here. Unfortunately at the same point, the horrific ivory poaching was getting going at unsustainable levels again. 

As the Eastern and Southern African countries got the poaching back under control, the target was switched to the forest elephants of west Africa (in some ways as they have straighter tusks these are worth more anyway).

Unfortunately in the intervening years Gabon has lost anywhere between 40 and 80% of its wild forest elephant population. They hosted a significant portion of the entire species remaining population, this is bad news for it’s future conservation.

We need to halt a loss of elephants from the African forests, they are integral to the future survival of the entire ecosystem. One of the reasons that in rain forest you don’t get groves of the same species of trees, is because if this ever happens insect that damages the tree does too well in the area and can end up killing the trees. This is how you can end up with each acre in an African forest containing hundreds of different species of tree despite the small area.

Now in theory that’s a fantastic thing, however in practice there are some problems. Generally tree seeds fall into two categories: Either they are light and are blown on the wind, all they are heavy and relying on animals eating them and then dispersing the seeds with a nice dose of fertilizer. However this is the problem, you remove the seed dispersal, you can end up with mass die off.

Indeed the loss of forest elephants from African rain forest may lead to the collapse of them,and many incredible damages that this will cause to the weather and ecosystem of Africa.

Brazilian frog thought dead for 50 years shown to be alive

Megaelosia bocainensis, a frog thought extinct for 50 years was found using eDNA which is DNA living organisms left behind in the environment.

It should be noted that a living member of this species was not found. However increasingly this technique is being used with great success, for tracing seriously endangered animals.

It is also thought this technique might be useful in the fight against future viruses and illnesses.

See Animals Wild